[TrashMan]

I always loved the Tomcat, long before Top Gun made it famous (ironically enough, by using it entirely outside it's primary role), but I seem to recall the problem with the Tomcat wasn't the plane, it was the Phoenix missiles and the inhibitive price of them?

As for F22, the more complicated they make the plumbing...

Nah. The molds got destroyed, so it became hard to mantain or something like that. I hear Rumesfield was involved.

[Flipside]

I still love those great planes of the 80's/90's

F-14 - Bomber killer supreme
F-15E  - Strike Eagle, the most awesome assault bomber evar!
F-16 - One of the best dogfighters made.
A-10 - Infantries best friend

Nah. The molds got destroyed, so it became hard to mantain or something like that. I hear Rumesfield was involved.

I know there was a problem with range, they were supposed to have a range of something like 200km, but were only really effective at around 60-70km or something.

[Nuclear1]

Thing is, the Air Force is replacing the vast majority (or at least attempting to do so) of its air fleet.  We're attempting to replace old airframes, some of which are 50 year old designs, with new shiny top-of-the-line aircraft of the same role...only to have this happen.

Basically, we're replacing KC-135s which are surviving off of other cannibalized tankers and F15s which are having cockpits fall off in midflight with...fighters that can't stay in the air for a respectable amount of time due to rain.

Basically, replacing old, outdated skeletons of aircraft with high maintenance problems and replacing them with new, shinier...aircraft with high maintenance problems.

The Air Force has spent the last several years (and by that I mean decades) ruled by CSAFs and senior leadership insistent on upgrading fighter aircraft above anything--the common term was Fighter Mafia. But ever since Gates took over as SecDef he's been attempting to put that to a stop, essentially firing the old Airforce Chief of Staff and AF Secretary.  The new leadership is honestly a little bit more focused on the more significant problems: nukes, UAVs, and reversing the airmen-for-fighters drawdown on the last several years.

We'll just have to wait and see with this though...

[NGTM-1R]

Stealth, as we think of it, doesn't exist in the real world. The newest generation of fighters can pick up Raptors at forty miles out.

Base canard. At 40 miles you're already about 10 miles within AMRAAM range. (Or mere seconds from dogfighting considering the supercruise capablity.) That part, at least, worked as advertized.

The real danger here is that the JSF is going to reuse a lot of the technology, and the Navy is not happy about the skin problems. Rain and sand abrasion is child's play compared to salt water. People have actually suggested cancelling the contract, which while thoroughly unpractical, shows how annoyed the Navy is. The Marines are only slightly less irate.

[Scotty]

It seems obvious that the F-22 is too cost-ineffective to be practical (even though it looks flippin' awesome).  Most of that, as already stated, is the stealth skin.  That could probably be fixed by just stripping the skin off of it and replacing the stealth canopy with a regular one.  Honestly, has no one thought of that, previous posters aside?  I would be willing to bet that the skin represents a sizeable percentage of the entire cost of the plane, even though it doesn't say anywhere how much it actually costs (nor does a google search bring up anything).

Also, quick trivia:  The AMRAAM reference earlier, with it's maximum range of ~50 miles, is the AIM-120A/B, newer versions actually have a range of 65 miles.

[SpardaSon21]

Well if they are dead by the time they detect the F-22, I would say the stealth skin is doing its job.  All they need to do is make it more durable.

[General Battuta]

The range figures are a bit flexible. The hit-probability brackets, as I understand it, vary pretty considerably based on the relative velocity of the launcher and the target.

[TrashMan]

I know there was a problem with range, they were supposed to have a range of something like 200km, but were only really effective at around 60-70km or something.

Nah, the ferry range (total range) for a Tomcat without extra fuel tanks is 2960km.
I'm still pissed the Navy/Congress didn't go with the Super Tomcat 21.

[Roanoke]

It's kind of funny, since I fell in love with the Hawker Hunter when I worked at Farnborough for entirely the opposite reason, it's probably one of the easiest jets to maintain that has ever been made, there was practically nothing on the plane that couldn't be fixed easily, which is why us Apprentices were allowed to work on it

The Airfix dudes love the Hunter too, supposed to be a great kit for beginners. I think it was designed by the same chap who penned the Hurricane ? I like Buccanneer, though I've always liked Ruskie fighters too. MIG and later Sukhoi bureau fighters look awesome! Foxbat/Foxhound, Fulcrum, Flanker, Berkut etc.
American kit always looks high tec, British seemed to have a improvised, born of necessaitiy but efficent look with Russians somewhere in between.


They use to have a UK Lightening Jet outside an RAF aerodome in Clitheroe (gate guardian ?) but it got scrapped a couple of years ago

[colecampbell666]

The F-35? It's not scrapped, that's the Joint Strike Fighter.

[Scotty]

I love the MiG-29 Fulcrum.  Part of it because it's basically a Russian F-15().

Fun Fact:  Russian pilots of the MiG-29 call it the Fulcrum too.

[Sushi]

They use to have a UK Lightening Jet outside an RAF aerodome in Clitheroe (gate guardian ?) but it got scrapped a couple of years ago

The F-35? It's not scrapped, that's the Joint Strike Fighter.

He's talking about the original English Electric Lightning, one that the F-35 is (partially) named after (along with the American P-38 Lightning).

[colecampbell666]

Oh.

[Roanoke]

Wiki

[Sarafan]

I know there was a problem with range, they were supposed to have a range of something like 200km, but were only really effective at around 60-70km or something.

Nah, the ferry range (total range) for a Tomcat without extra fuel tanks is 2960km.
I'm still pissed the Navy/Congress didn't go with the Super Tomcat 21.

Super Tomcat 21?

[NGTM-1R]

There were two projects; one would have been the Super Tomcat, the other the Tomcat 21. One was probably evolved out of the other. Both were to create an all-around improvement of the Tomcat using new or remanufactured airframes and give it multirole capablity. Both were well along and had produced a couple well-performing prototypese.

Both were cancelled.

[Flipside]

I wasn't very clear in my last post, I was talking about the AIM-54 Phoenix, not the Tomcat as far as the range was concerned.

I seem to recall that the original range designated for the Phoenix was 250 NM, but it ended up at 100 NM, which, whilst still very impressive, Tico's and the like now had far cheaper weapons that could perform the same CAP functions.

[WeatherOp]

Just one more reason they should have just created an operational F-15 with thrust vectoring like the one they tested.

[Eishtmo]

I still love those great planes of the 80's/90's

F-14 - Bomber killer supreme
F-15E  - Strike Eagle, the most awesome assault bomber evar!
F-16 - One of the best dogfighters made.
A-10 - Infantries best friend

F-16 is even better as a bomber.

Thing is, the Air Force is replacing the vast majority (or at least attempting to do so) of its air fleet.  We're attempting to replace old airframes, some of which are 50 year old designs, with new shiny top-of-the-line aircraft of the same role...only to have this happen.

The one they aren't replacing and have no plans to ever replace?  The B-52 bomber.

[IceFire]

Its true about the B-52...fortunately the B-52 was well designed, its been well maintained, and unlike planes like the F-14, F-15, and F-16 it doesn't have to perform extreme manoeuvres on a regular basis.  The B-52 is more akin to a modern airliner than a high performance fighter and while that sounds like a bad thing I think its the reason why it persists.  Apparently there is another bomber project in the works right now that will function more like the B-52 but with more modern technology and of course with stealthy features.  That bomber project is considered stopgap until they can have some sort of super bomber that can fly at hypersonic speeds somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2050 or so.

Anyways the biggest problem right now is this. The the F-22 is the absolute best in the world but expensive and now apparently even more expensive to maintain.  The F-15 has an amazing record but the latest Su-27 variants (Su-30MKI and MKK for instance) that are available for export are better in most respects.  The F-16 is still a great aircraft and many of them are relatively new but they can't do everything.  The F-18E/F is a great plane but its not good enough to win outnumbered by the latest Su-27 models.  Plus all of the older models despite being quite good are ageing and there are cracks in the airframes forming and all sorts of bad things.

So take Australia which faces the real possibility that everyone else in the region is going to have something close to the latest Su-27 export model which is largely better than the F-15 and you are relying on ageing F-18C models for defense...things get interesting for the purchasing experience.  The F-35 is capable but its not massively superior and isn't proven. The F-22 is not for export and has problems.

It seems like the winner of the current generation of aircraft is an upgraded Su-27 or the Typhoon which seems to be well liked and doing relatively well in exports.  Its rarely a pure performance game...